Book Description

This volume “fill[s] a gap in our understanding of black radical and nationalist writings [and] will . . . change the way . . . we tend to look at black thought.” —Ernest Allen, Jr., W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst The brilliant writer, orator, educator, critic, and activist Hubert Harrison (1883–1927) is one of the truly important, yet neglected, figures of early twentieth-century America. Known as “the father of Harlem radicalism,” and a leading Socialist party speaker who advocated that socialists champion the cause of the Negro as a revolutionary doctrine, Harrison had an important influence on a generation of race and class radicals, including Marcus Garvey and A. Philip Randolph. Harrison envisioned a socialism that had special appeal to African-Americans, and he affirmed the duty of socialists to oppose race-based oppression. Despite high praise from his contemporaries, Harrison's legacy has largely been neglected. This reader redresses the imbalance; Harrison's essays, editorials, reviews, letters, and diary entries offer a profound, and often unique, analysis of issues, events and individuals of early twentieth-century America. His writings also provide critical insights and counterpoints to the thinking of W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey. The reader is organized thematically to highlight Harrison's contributions to the debates on race, class, culture, and politics of his time. The writings span Harrison's career and the evolution of his thought, and include extensive political writings, editorials, meditations, reviews of theater and poetry, and deeply evocative social commentary. “Jeff Perry’s new book on Hubert Harrison's writings and speeches is a timely addition to the scholarship on early Black radicals and on the Harlem Renaissance period. . . . [A] must read.” —Portia James, Anacostia Museum